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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992863">Heaven in My View, Mind into Mind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell'>TheOceanIsMyInkwell</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Only Safe Haven That I've Known [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SKAM (Norway)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandonment, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Character Study, Child Neglect, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Humor, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Moving In Together, Muteness, selective mutism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:21:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992863</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“So. Er. I was thinking...if this is gonna be a, a real thing, then--let’s--move in together. Find a place and…” Isak can’t help it. He can’t deny it, his eyes are beginning to sting. “Enjoy our last year of school together, before you...move away.”</p><p>Swallow. Breathe. Smile. Swallow. Speak--</p><p>His throat, it’s closing up.</p><p>The beginnings of something equal parts sunniness and disbelief are creeping over Even’s features. His eyebrows flick upward again. “You want to move in together?” he utters, like a prayer he’s learning for the first time.</p><p>And, oh, how it gives Isak so much hope he might scream or drench himself in ice.</p><p>“Of course,” Even breathes. “Of fucking course. Did you know I’ve already been looking at apartments?”</p><p>Here it comes. Here it comes. He can’t speak. He’s happy, elated, ecstatic, high like he’s just smoked for the first time in <i>months</i>, and the weight of his emotions still piles on him like a knee on his throat.<br/>--<br/>Isak borrows Even's laptop and discovers he's been checking university art programs abroad. He suddenly realizes he's running out of time to ask Even to move in together, and to tell him about his selective mutism.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eskild Tryggvason &amp; Isak Valtersen, Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Only Safe Haven That I've Known [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>152</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heaven in My View, Mind into Mind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this entire thing ran away from me and I'm not mad about it!! Here's the first part in what I think will be a series of oneshots of Isak dealing with his selective mutism. I'm heavily projecting my own experiences onto him, so of course this is likely not representative of everyone's experience with mutism. All the same, I hope you find something to relate to...or at least partly educational?</p><p>Part of Skam Bingo 2020, filling the square for "Future." Also a fill for drabble prompt #33 from <a href="https://theoceanismyinkwell.tumblr.com/post/190336432688/the-way-you-said-i-love-you">this list</a>: "I love you, written on a post-it note."</p><p>Theme song and title inspiration: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA7RHW_1yKY">"Untold" by RY X</a> (his entire Unfurl album is. just. phenomenal. played it on repeat while writing this)</p><p>I hope you enjoy!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Isak has never been good at words. He fails at them. </p><p>His sister Lea always used to say when they were growing up that if she had something hurtful sitting on her tongue, it was far better to say nothing at all. That silence could always be rescued, but something uttered could never be taken back.</p><p>He believed her at the time. She practiced it, and practiced it well, and it worked for her.</p><p>She said nothing the day she came home from exams and found Isak curled up on his side under the coffee table, shards of teacups across the hardwood and their mother and the house keys gone in a flutter of the curtains. She just picked up his phone where it lay facedown by the baseboard and clicked it on to check the time, and winced when the cracked screen dragged at the pads of her fingers, and then she let out a puff of a sigh as if she never meant to make the sound in the first place and stumbled to her knees and gathered up her little brother into her lap. It was a struggle, and his neck hurt, but by then everything already hurt inside and out, so he didn’t care. He couldn’t bring himself to. He let her run her hands through his hair--rough edges of her chipping nail polish catching in the knots--and they watched from the side of their eyes as the sun shifted course through the window and waited. They sat, and breathed, and counted the minutes and hours until their mother came back from wandering about on her episode, and they waited.</p><p>And that was perhaps the most comforted Isak had ever felt in his own home. In quiet and in wordlessness.</p><p>So the silence became a doctrine. A kind of unwritten proverb. He wavered in the doorway as his father hollered his vocal cords hoarse, and his mother stood tall ringed by the light of the kitchen with a single tear track down her face like a martyr. And Isak toed the wood underfoot with the surface of his sock, and he flattened himself against the wall as his father stormed past, and ripped open drawers and hurled bundles of sweaters and belts onto the bed, and snapped the suitcase closed and growled a final insult at Isak’s mother and yanked the front door open and--and--</p><p>And Isak said nothing--</p><p><i>Nothing</i>--</p><p>And he did not even think to text Lea for hours after that, even as their mother crawled onto the kitchen counter and sat there cross-legged and sobbing into her fists like a giant child, because the words were caught in his throat and he was just fifteen years old and that meant he no longer knew how to move or think or translate the forest in his head into a message for his sister.</p><p>Two days later, as Isak and Lea walked out through the double doors of the psychiatric ward and felt the air return to them as if they were finally allowed to exhale, Isak grabbed his sister by the wrist and pulled her back and stood there barely meeting her eye. </p><p>“Isak?” she’d asked. </p><p>He’d shaken his head.</p><p>“Isak.”</p><p>She didn’t pull away from his grip, not even when it became crushing and he could see the pain flashing across her face. He hesitated another second and then pulled her to him in a hug, and buried his nose in the space between her ear and her collarbone where he could smell the rings of coffee and her unwashed hair. And he felt comforted, untethered, maybe, but understood, because they both reeked of sleepless days and abandonment and only <i>they</i> could ever know just what the silence meant to them.</p><p>Still, he let the tears rack him now, flow freely, in the name of all the guilt of the words he could have spoken between his mother and father that fateful night. He likes to think these days that Lea understood precisely why he was crying. Other days he thinks it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t deserve to have anyone who understands him, who forgives him for the breadth and depth of everything he never said to save their parents.</p><p>Shortly after that, Lea moves across the country and she starts a new life with the broken spark of half-hope in her eyes. Isak smiles. And he waves. And they don’t say anything, except the shape of <i>Jeg elsker deg</i> on their mouths through the bus window, because that’s safe and meaningless and would never pierce the silence between them.</p><p>That was the day Isak realized how much he hated the quiet after all. How much of a curse it was, how stupid he was to ever believe Lea that saying nothing was better than saying something hurtful, because here he was waist-deep in the bog of his emotions that he’d never learned to untangle and release into words, all because of--because--because of <i>her</i>.</p><p>--</p><p>Isak is loud when he needs to be.</p><p>He slaps his thighs and thumps his booted foot against the rock and sings along with Jonas’ raucous campfire song on their cabin trip.</p><p>He takes a hit from the gigantic joint and passes it to Magnus, and he doubles over laughing into the echo of the filthy bathroom as Mags chokes on his next breath and Mahdi mimes throttling him.</p><p>He flings the comebacks at the boys about their grades, about their sex life, that get them gasping and grinning from the burn.</p><p>He gets a call from Lea at three in the morning because she can’t sleep and he can’t sleep either and apparently sibling telepathy works across the country, too, and he ends up going outside to stand by the garbage bins with his foot only halfway into his sneaker, and yells and yells at her about pointless and stupid things because he never learned how to fucking talk about the things that matter.</p><p>He can console himself later that at the very least he never said anything hurtful about the things he really wanted to talk about.</p><p>About how he hated her for leaving. How he hated himself for envying her so much, when he <i>chose</i> this, he chose to stay, and nobody was forcing him to keep himself rooted to Oslo instead of picking up and packing up and going. How he hated the universe for making him care so damn much, when their parents never seemed to give a fuck about either of them, but here he was still hanging around the city in the corners their family used to haunt on holidays, pretending one of them would come back and find him and he could be the one who got to say he <i>stayed</i>.</p><p>And Isak has almost mastered the art of silence covered with words, he really has--he’s got it down to the right quips and the sly smiles and even the credible-sounding excuses on his off days--until Even Bech Næsheim walks into his life and words begin to fail Isak all over again.</p><p>--</p><p>Coherence flees Isak completely the instant Even saunters across the courtyard with his hand in the pocket of his jean jacket and the joint rolled up behind his ear. Isak looks, stares: devours. Gazes meet, lock, swerve.</p><p>Even talks to him in the bathroom about <i>tissues</i>, of all fucking things, and all Isak can do is gape at him.</p><p>It’s comfortable, in a way, how Even takes his speechlessness in stride and fills it with his own words, some meaningful and some less so. They can sit in a windowsill and smoke and think and meet in the middle when their eyes find each other again every so often. They can find themselves in a deserted kitchen, garbage bag of red solo cups between their feet, and they can read each other without drawing a breath or uttering a word, and all Even has to do is dip his head and Isak will take the silence of five seconds with both hands, grip it under his nails without daring to let go, because Even is so close to him and all around him and he’s about to kiss him. Isak’s lips part, and this is as good as saying <i>yes, it’s me, it’s me saying I want this, and I want you, even if I could never tell you in as many words even under the guise of 2am drunkenness</i>.</p><p>Admittedly, they are shit at communication.</p><p>Even descends into his manic episode without so much as telling Isak a discernible hint about this thing he struggles with every day. Isak never works up the courage to tell him just then he loves him, because he believes Sonja. He believes people who scream and gesture and say everything that’s on their mind, no matter how hurtful. He no longer trusts himself or trusts Even, not the way he wants to, because they’re both wrapped up in their different kinds of silences, and people who live too long and too comfortably in the quiet have their own secrets that can never be spilled.</p><p>Sonja reminds him a little of Lea, he thinks one morning with a blink in the middle of cutting up his toast. The same floppy haircut that she got after moving to Trondheim. The same look of pity undercutting everything, that he could never pin down and confront her about, but simply let crawl under his skin every time they video called.</p><p>Except that Lea loves her silence too much. Sonja could never be mute, not like either of the Valtersen siblings, because she believes in laying everyone’s cards on the table where she can see them.</p><p>And that’s why months after Isak runs all the way from the church to the courtyard and the sleet starts to pelt around him and Even as he whispers, “You are not alone,” Isak still wonders if he’s right for Even.</p><p>He wonders. He says nothing. And he kisses Even and can’t help smiling at the love of his life, and he aches.</p><p>--</p><p>It takes Isak another two months after Christmas, after their official getting-together, to put a name to the void around his tongue.</p><p>Selective mutism.</p><p>--</p><p>It sounds clinical. It doesn’t fit into any sentence he says aloud.</p><p>--</p><p>
  <b>Lørdag 10:56</b>
</p><p>Isak doesn’t know at first what he’s looking at when he grabs Even’s laptop from across the dinette, banana and peanut butter toast still between his teeth, and he logs on to check the school exam schedule while his boyfriend is in the bathroom.</p><p>A few seconds later, he registers the words emblazoned across the stock photos of art studios and smiling teens: University of the Arts London. Central Saint Martins.</p><p>It takes him the longest moment ever to react. He’s already clicked open a new tab and navigated to the Nissen website, halfway to the timetables he was looking for, when he becomes painfully aware of the barb in his throat and the cotton in his mouth.</p><p>Even comes back from the bathroom, stopping on the way to chat a bit with Eskild in the hallway. He pulls up a chair beside Isak with a scrape against the linoleum and throws his arm over the back of Isak’s seat. He glances over, snagging a piece of Isak’s cut-up toast, and Isak can feel the heat of his gaze against his profile even at this angle.</p><p>“Morning, baby,” Even says, and kisses him wetly on the temple.</p><p>“Morning, you,” Isak murmurs back, the only thing his throat can work up the courage to say. Even smells of the dried rain and sleet from last night, when they got caught out in the wintry downpour on their way back from the party at Mikael’s.</p><p>Even indicates the laptop with his chin. “Studying so soon?”</p><p>Isak chomps down on his toast and feigns a cough on the dryness to buy himself time. His brain is moving like sludge today. Stuck in the trenches of half-formed thoughts and shadows of words that escape him. A nameless worry he doesn’t dare touch, or associate with the webpage he knows is still up on Even’s laptop on the seventh tab from the left.</p><p>He grabs Even’s mug from his boyfriend’s hand instead and chugs down half of the coffee. “No,” he answers finally, and it sounds wrong to anyone who knows Isak intimately, which is to say no one because no one ever truly knows how much he struggles to speak in unscripted sentences when he’s been triggered like this.</p><p>“No,” he says again, “what do you think of me? I need to know how much time I have left to procrastinate.”</p><p>Even makes that weird and throaty sound when he’s blindsided again by Isak’s dry humor and nearly wasn’t expecting the quip to come out of Isak’s mouth.</p><p>“You have two weeks, Isak,” he says with a rowdy jostle at Isak’s ribs with his elbow. “I could’ve told you that.” Then he wiggles his brows. “Two weeks of freedom. What is the good Mr. Valtersen gonna do with all that time, huh?”</p><p>Isak sucks in a breath. <i>Oh, I don’t know</i>, he thinks to himself. <i>Play too many video games and whine about having to be the one to wash up in the flat. Have an existential crisis about my future career. Oh, and while we’re at it, confront you about this whole study abroad thing that you were apparently looking at while I was asleep and didn’t think to bring up</i>.</p><p>But on the heels of his next breath he instantly forgives Even with a slew of explanations: <i>He was just checking it out. Doesn’t mean he’s really interested in leaving the country. Maybe he saw an ad and clicked on it. Or his guidance counselor talked him into it. For Christ’s sake, don’t punish the guy for being curious</i>.</p><p>And <i>it’s his life. His career. He doesn’t have to report everything to you the instant he thinks of it. Stop smothering him--controlling him--that’s precisely what broke him apart from Sonja</i>.</p><p>And, of course, the perennial favorite: <i>you’re just being clingy and annoying and you always overthink things and make mountains out of mole hills. Snap out of it</i>.</p><p>But he can’t shake the unease from pooling in his stomach, because he may have known that Even holds his own silences, and he himself is not innocent of holding back when it mattered--yet the fact that this lacuna exists between them, that there is a <i>thing</i> and a <i>space</i> and a <i>betweenness</i> to describe them, deeply terrifies him.</p><p>“Babe?” Even’s feather-light touch comes down on his shoulder and traces a double figure eight across Isak’s back through the static of his shirt. “You with me? Everything good?”</p><p>Isak jerks back to himself. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I just...got so lost in the image of making out with you in the new laundry room downstairs that I guess my mouth forgot to work.” He tacks on a tiny little smirk.</p><p>Even regards his sly expression with just a hint of suspicion, but Isak holds his gaze and widens his smile, and soon Even’s visage melts into a teasing incredulity. “Your mouth found better things to do?”</p><p>Isak shrugs with his lip caught between his teeth. The picture of nonchalance. He nearly blew his cover but here he is again, master of concealing every pressure point where the ants crawl up his throat and stop up his vocal cords from moving to talk about the thing he really wants to talk about.</p><p>Fuck Lea and her silences.</p><p>Fuck his family and all the things they learned to never say. Isak’s not good for Even, he’s bad, he’s secretive, he’s toxic, he doesn’t know how to be honest with his own boyfriend and get himself out of his own head of made-up problems, all because the fucking Valtersens didn’t know how to open their mouths without everything coming crashing down around them.</p><p>“Well, just for that highly inconvenient image you just planted in my brain, I’ll be taking this last piece of toast, thank you very much,” Even declares. “Seriously. Fuck. Right before I need to go see my mom for brunch.”</p><p>Isak’s mouth twitches. <i>You could always tell her you’re running late</i>, is what he would normally say with a suggestive waggle of his brow and a wink. And Even would normally laugh, shocked and full-bellied, and he’d swoop in for a sneaky kiss that lands off-center from its mark but still makes Isak giggle and melt against his boyfriend.</p><p>Instead Isak sits there, looking up at Even as the other boy half-rises on his haunches from the squeaky kitchen table, and they lock eyes as Even deliberately crunches down on the last piece of banana toast.</p><p>They hold each other’s gaze for another few seconds, Isak’s heart thumping. How could Even not hear it from here?</p><p>Even’s face comes down eventually in a soft journey halfway to understanding. “Sorry, you must be actually stressed out about exams right now. I didn’t realize. I’ll--be good. I mean, I’ll try my best to stay away, so you can focus. I can get my mom to take us shopping, maybe have Dad meet us there to keep me occupied for the evening. That way you can...Isak?”</p><p>Isak has passed the back of his bare wrist over his eyes over the course of Even’s rambling. No, he is not tearing up. Emotions like this in the middle of the morning are ridiculous. Even is--ridiculous. Isak doesn’t deserve him.</p><p><i>I can’t talk. I can’t talk</i>, Isak wants to say to him, because that single quip about the laundry room pulled every ounce of energy left in his skeleton, but he can’t fucking say it.</p><p>So instead he nods. And he plasters on a brave smile, a band-aid for the images of London and Even’s lonesome figure in a wide new city, and he injects as much quiet sappiness as he can into the curve in his lips. He winks this time--manages to do it without his heart rate approaching fatal--and he shoots Even his signature salute.</p><p>Even dissolves into another breathless laugh. “Okay. Okay. Kick me out like that, then.”</p><p>Isak knows he doesn’t mean it, not in that way, but he shuffles to his feet and leans up on his toes to press a kiss to Even’s nose anyway.</p><p>“Love you,” he mumbles against Even’s skin. It’s the last of his mental energy that goes into mouthing that words, and just as well, because Even whispers the phrase back to him before backing up and out of the doorway. Even, ridiculously cute asshole that he is, comes barging back in through the door a couple seconds later to grab Isak’s face between his hands and plant another mind-melting kiss on Isak’s lips, and then with a chuckle and a parody of Isak’s salute he disappears out the door again.</p><p>Isak stands rooted to the linoleum for a long moment. He can hear his roommates starting to putter about in their respective rooms--he and Even were, shockingly, the earliest to wake up today, on account of Isak having to catch up with some last-minute assignments--and now he can just make out the screech of hangers on a metal clothes rack. This means that Eskild is up.</p><p>He digs for his phone and taps out a text. <i>Come out into the kitchen please</i>.</p><p>And tacks on: <i>I’ll make more toasties for you bc Even finished all of them</i>.</p><p>There’s no response or read receipt for several minutes, during which Isak chews at the hangnail at the corner of his thumb in the perfect picture of executive dysfunction, until suddenly Eskild’s bedroom door flings open and the guru himself comes gliding out with a very specific look on his face.</p><p>Eskild’s gaze darts to the kitchen table in appraisal. He approaches and tests the weight of the metal coffee pot, and once he’s satisfied that there’s still a good two cups in it left, he takes the liberty of pouring himself one. He turns and leans back with his hip against the table.</p><p>“So, my friend,” he says. “Those toasties?”</p><p>Isak stares up at him, wide-eyed. His feet tingle. Frozen.</p><p>Eskild studies him for a long second. Something shifts then in his face, as if he’s read everything he needs to know in the younger boy’s face. “Okay,” he says, softer this time. He sets the chipped mug down on the corner of the table beside him. “Something’s up. You don’t just offer to make more breakfast for us unless you need something.” He cushions the accusation with an unsubtle wink.</p><p>Isak opens his mouth, but predictably--infuriatingly--nothing comes out.</p><p>He picks up his phone again from the counter and types out to Eskild: <i>It’s about Even. I need your advice. (yikes)</i></p><p>Eskild snorts at his phone as soon as he receives the text. The look he tosses Isak’s way, though, is still nonplussed. In a lowered tone he asks, “Are you afraid of anyone hearing? We can go out into the hallway.”</p><p>Isak shakes his head. Texts again: <i>This is part of what I needed to ask you. I get days where I can’t talk. I think it’s a stress thing. I need to be able to talk to Even about a Thing</i>.</p><p>Confusion still clouds Eskild’s visage, until something seems to click into place for him. Everything about his posture softens. “Aww, Isak,” he says aloud. “Is this one of your quiet days? Is this...is this what that is?”</p><p>Isak nods. Mute day, actually, but he doesn’t stop to correct Eskild’s terminology for the moment.</p><p>“I was actually thinking about that a couple days ago, when I was looking at the asparagus at Coop,” Eskild jokes. “Not...that...asparagus makes me think of you. But. I was just remembering how you wouldn’t talk at all the day after we met at the bar and I took you home. No, actually, for two days after that.”</p><p>Isak worries his bottom lip with his teeth. He can feel the skin of his lip catch between the gap. He doesn’t know what to say. Even if he could physically talk right now, he would have no idea how to fill the gap in the conversation that belongs to him.</p><p>But Eskild, master of social skills and all things vaguely uncle-like and comforting, gestures to the couch in the nearby lounge and picks up his half-empty coffee mug on his way there. When Isak still hesitates in the middle of the kitchen, Eskild gives the spot on the couch next to him an impatient pat.</p><p>“So if I’m getting this right, you’re still able to text me, right?” To which Isak nods. Even presses on: “Lay it on me then, Issy. Type it out or whatever. I’ll wait.”</p><p>So Isak does. </p><p><i>Google says it’s selective mutism and it can be triggered by stress or trauma. Also related to depression and stuff. Most of the time it’s not really severe. I can get by with saying a couple words and just being quieter in group convos</i>.</p><p>Eskild nods in encouragement. “Yeah, I suppose it makes sense now.”</p><p>Isak wants to point out that not every time he’s been withdrawn from the group has been a mute day--Eskild is doing that thing where he’s looking askance at Isak with a flavor too close to guilt for Isak’s comfort--but he doesn’t.</p><p><i>Other days it’s really bad. That’s actually super rare. I feel like I can’t open my mouth and talk or I will physically vomit or implode on the spot. I don’t know why. The thought of talking just makes it hard to breathe</i>.</p><p>Isak nearly types out how much being forced to talk when his mother or father was screaming in his face made him want to die, but he stops his thumbs from writing that in time. Some things he doesn’t need to lay on Eskild’s shoulders. Not today.</p><p>“Okay,” Eskild says slowly. “So. You’re able to tell when a…‘mute day’? Yes? When a mute day is coming? Okay. You just warn me, shoot me a text, and I will clear everyone out of your way in an instant. And you <i>know</i> everyone listens to me because I run this place.”</p><p>That pulls an unwilling huff from Isak. The light dances in Eskild’s eyes at the fact that he’s finally made the boy smile.</p><p>“Soo,” Eskild goes on. “Even? What does this have to do with Even? Have you...told him about this yet?”</p><p>Isak shakes his head so hard he thinks the shame will rattle right out of his skull.</p><p>“Aww, baby. It must be making you nervous. But I’m so sure he’ll understand.”</p><p>Without answering--nonverbally or otherwise--Isak gets up to retrieve Even’s laptop from the table and opens it up to the London tab for Eskild to see.</p><p>It takes a minute for Eskild to register what he’s seeing, just like Isak from earlier this morning. When he finally does, his entire face crumples in sympathy.</p><p>“He’s leaving? To go abroad next year?”</p><p>Isak shrugs.</p><p>“You haven’t talked about it yet.”</p><p><i>I just saw it on his screen today and he never mentioned anything</i>, Isak texts in clarification.</p><p>Eskild hums. He has a very particular look on his face, the kind that came over him in the kitchen late that one night when Isak first told him about Even getting back together with Sonja and Eskild hadn’t known how honest to be. But something else wars with the doubt in Eskild’s eyes, and it drives him to school his expression swiftly.</p><p>“Is it bad?” Isak ventures to ask, and that one whisper costs him another jolt of anxiety in his chest and a soft sheen of sweat on his palms.</p><p>Eskild lays a soft hand on his forearm. Shoots Isak a mildly reproachful look, like <i>don’t speak, I know you can’t, you don’t have to, just let me think</i>.</p><p>After another moment of contemplation, Eskild says with a shrug, “He could be waiting for the right moment to bring it up. After all, it’s pretty likely he <i>just</i> started looking at this, right?”</p><p>Isak wobbles his head noncommittally. Life has taught him not to trust in hope. Even was a grenade that made all those doubts implode, but habits die hard, especially in the quiet and loneliness of Isak’s mind when he’s left to his own devices.</p><p>“Hey,” Eskild says softly. “Hey, baby J. Don’t doubt it. No, don’t shrug at me, believe it. I was wrong before about Even, and I was glad to be. I trust him to talk to you about this.”</p><p>Something like a well of shame bubbles up inside Isak at that. Of course he trusts Even. Of course he knows, deep down, that Even not mentioning the study abroad option to him as soon as it occurred to him does not mean there’s something wrong between them.</p><p>But he also knows that if Even is serious about this, it means change, and God, if change doesn’t terrify Isak to the very atoms in his bones.</p><p>“Isak. Isak.” Eskild’s voice draws him out of his head for a moment. “I think you should ask him about it as soon as he gets back. You shouldn’t…” He huffs a breath through his nose loops the pad of his finger absently around the curve of the mug handle. “I hate seeing you agonize like this.”</p><p>Isak wants to flare up. Wants to stand up and walk out of this conversation, wants to <i>want</i> to regret confiding in Eskild in the first place, because he doesn’t need sympathy, he doesn’t need pity, the little shake in Eskild’s voice that he knows will be paired with sincerity in his eyes if Isak looks up. But Isak is only human, and a boy, and he hates himself more for using anger to cover up the truth that all he wants is to be held when no one else can hear the voice screaming and stuck in his throat.</p><p>He nods his assent.</p><p>Eskild uncurls his feet from underneath himself to switch the direction in which he’s leaning, so that now his body is oriented closer to Isak’s. Casually he stretches and sets his mug down on the coffee table. Drops his arm on top of the sofa behind Isak’s head. He doesn’t hesitate to tap the boy’s shoulder, and with even less hesitation Isak tips to the side to lay his cheek against the ridiculous sheen of Eskild’s robe.</p><p>“What can I do to help you out of it?” Eskild asks. Long fingers probe the crown of Isak’s head.</p><p>Isak shrugs.</p><p>Eskild moves his hand down to Isak’s bicep to rub it up and down underneath the pilly softness of his hoodie. “Should I just talk to you? Keep you company?”</p><p>The movement of Isak’s nod musses up his curls against the static of Eskild’s satin. Eskild drops his cheek on top of Isak’s head, unwashed hair and all, and he rubs Isak’s arm just a tad more vigorously. </p><p>“I can do that,” says Eskild. “The dear Lord herself knows this here tongue can wag all night and all day.”</p><p>Isak might still deny it later on, but the snort of laughter that his flatmate’s ridiculousness pulls from him is so visceral that it leaves his throat aching.</p><p>--</p><p>
  <b>Lørdag 13:19</b>
</p><p>When Even returns to the flat with a tinkle of his keys, Isak is standing in the shadow of the doorway of the hallway. He walked purposefully across the floor, so vast and tiny at once, about fifteen minutes before he knew Even would come up, because he’s never trusted himself to have the courage to spontaneously walk into conversations like this. And so Even glances over his shoulder at him, and flicks his eyebrows up at him and his eyes go dark and shiny and the joy spreads to the rest of his face like a mantle of relief, and Isak stands rooted to the spot with his feet apart and his hands in his pockets and nothing but his heart and mistaken words beating in his throat.</p><p>“Hi, baby,” Even greets him, and it sounds like breathing. He crosses the distance in two strides with his hands out to cup Isak’s face and plants a kiss on his lips. He smells like smoked cheese and tram air.</p><p>Isak kisses him back. His body melts a bit, and his brain gives in, too, and whispers, <i>this is Even, this is you. It will all be okay</i>. And for the split second that the war in his head seems to be over, his mouth takes over and runs away with its special brand of stupidity.</p><p>They pull back to breathe and smile at one another, and as Even touches the tip of his nose to Isak’s, Isak murmurs belatedly, “Hi. Um. Move in with me.”</p><p>A beat. And then, with a half-hidden chuckle: “What?”</p><p>Isak comes crashing back to the ground with a pound of his heart. He feels the anxiety closing in on him, and his vocal cords quaking to not speak again, but he pushes through it. Eskild just helped him get over his mute spell today, and if Isak is going to talk to Even about this seriously, then he wants to be able to speak.</p><p>So he swallows. And he decides on bravery--as if he ever had a choice in the first place.</p><p>“I saw what you were looking at on your laptop,” he says. “The study abroad. Which--is cool. It’s--awesome, actually.”</p><p>Even is looking back at him with blackened pupils and an undeniable intensity. He doesn’t say anything, but his gaze doesn’t swerve, either.</p><p>“I know you were probably waiting to bring it up...or...not. I don’t know. Maybe you were just looking and haven’t even decided yet. But. Um. I just wanted you to know I support whatever will be best for you, and honestly, you--” Isak licks his lips. “--Going to one of the top-rated universities in Europe for art and design is...a not...shitty idea.”</p><p>He manages to release a little laugh into the air, before his mouth settles again into its normal curve of uncertainty.</p><p>Even still is staring at him.</p><p><i>Say something. Say something, please</i>.</p><p>“So. Er. I was thinking...if this is gonna be a, a real thing, then--let’s--move in together. Find a place and…” Isak can’t help it. He can’t deny it, his eyes are beginning to sting. “Enjoy our last year of school together, before you...move away.”</p><p>Swallow. Breathe. Smile. Swallow. Speak--</p><p>His throat, it’s closing up.</p><p>The beginnings of a something equal parts sunniness and disbelief are creeping over Even’s features. His eyebrows flick upward again. “You want to move in together?” he utters, like a prayer he’s learning for the first time.</p><p>And, oh, how it gives Isak so much hope he might scream or drench himself in ice.</p><p>“Of course,” Even breathes. “Of fucking course. Did you know I’ve already been looking at apartments?”</p><p>Here it comes. Here it comes. He can’t speak. He’s happy, elated, ecstatic, high like he’s just smoked for the first time in <i>months</i>, and the weight of his emotions still piles on him like a knee on his throat. </p><p>Isak reaches forward and catches Even’s warm hand in his.</p><p>Then he digs for his phone and texts: <i>I can’t speak right now.</i></p><p>Even’s phone dings. With a cock of an eyebrow, not breaking eye contact, Even pulls his phone out of the pocket of his own jeans and grins down at the screen. “Neither can I. I--shit, I had this whole grand thing planned, when I was gonna ask you, and then--baby. Baby. What’s wrong?”</p><p>Isak taps out another message. <i>I physically can’t speak right now. It’s called mutism. Another thing I needed to tell you about…</i></p><p>Some flash of recognition lights up Even’s eyes, though confusion still dwells there after everything else has faded away. He squeezes Isak’s left hand that is holding his right, then scoops up Isak’s other hand and squeezes that, too. The anxiety is radiating off Isak in radio waves, and Even doesn’t know how he missed it until now.</p><p>“I think I’ve heard a little bit about that. You want to...stop talking for a while, or…?”</p><p>Isak rushes to shake his head. He rips one hand from Even’s to text: <i>Keep talking to me. It makes it better.</i></p><p>Even makes the executive decision then to steer his boyfriend by the shoulders toward the kitchen, which is the nearest refuge, and without letting go of Isak’s hand he opens the fridge and roots around until he finds the last bottle of aloe vera juice and hands it to him.</p><p>Isak detaches momentarily to take the drink and hop up onto the kitchen counter. Even wedges himself between Isak’s knees, hands running tentatively across his thighs, waiting for Isak to take several sips and begin to breathe more normally.</p><p>Three minutes later, his phone pings with more texts.</p><p>
  <i>I never figured out I had it until a few weeks ago. I thought it would get better after I realized what it is, but today got triggered because of the thing I saw on your computer</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And then again when you said yes</i>
</p><p>
  <i>To the moving in together</i>
</p><p>“Isak,” Even whispers. More scenarios run visibly through his eyes, remembrances of times when Isak was tight-lipped behind a smile, when he became short with his words but cushioned it with a laugh, when there was a strain written all over his face at social gatherings or intimate moments.</p><p>Even has so many questions sitting on the bed of his tongue. The mechanics and the psychology of it all. How does Isak know his muteness is coming, how does he get out of it. How Even couldn’t figure it out before him. How everyone just mistook it--<i>this</i>--for painful shyness.</p><p>“Isak,” Even tries again. “Have you...all those times you were quiet around me, especially when we first met...was that…?”</p><p>
  <i>Sometimes. It wasn’t always bad feelings. Just a lot of everything pouring into my brain at once</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I wasn’t even out yet when I met you so there was so much going on in my head</i>
</p><p>After sending off the last text, Isak mimes explosions with his hands around his head.</p><p>Even raises a brow, despite himself. Mimics the same movement by his head. “Chernobyl?”</p><p>Isak snorts and rolls his eyes. Nods with fond exasperation. The mere combination of gestures fills Even with so much relief and devotion that it hurts.</p><p>Even shuffles closer to Isak, now well and truly stuck between his knees against the counter. Even hasn’t even taken his sneakers off, and they squeak against the linoleum irreverently. They both pause to laugh under their breaths, before Even reaches out to play with the single curl that always falls over Isak’s brow into his eye when it’s overgrown like this.</p><p>“Thanks for telling me,” he says.</p><p>Isak nods. There is not a time or a universe where he would not tell Even this, he realizes in a quiet and explosive moment of epiphany. He thought he would never work up the courage to tell Even now, today, at least not with his physical voice working, but as he considers it he tells himself he’d like to think there’s a kind of poetic irony to it. Mutely telling his love of his muteness.</p><p>He doesn’t know if he’ll get better, or if there is a better for him in sight to reach for. There is a shift in the air, for sure, because every moment that Even thought Isak was struck dumb by the beauty of their connection is now being reconsidered and reframed against this entire confession: but it’s not a pernicious shift, Isak thinks. He thinks it’s something he could get used to. </p><p>He could get used to Even seeing him now, not as the boy so painfully shy that he has nothing to say, but the boy who feels so much and has so much to say that his brain and tongue conspire against him.</p><p>On an impulse, Isak twists a little to grab the post-it notepad and pen sitting by the fruit basket, and shoots Even an impish little grin as he scribbles.</p><p>“What?” says Even. Grinning now, too. “What. <i>What</i>.”</p><p>Isak raises a disapproving brow at him, shakes his head and goes on scribbling.</p><p>“Oh. Oh. Am I getting my comic now? Has Isak Valtersen suddenly discovered his secret artistic talent? Am I--should I contact the galleries, get in touch with--”</p><p><i>Hush</i>, Isak mouths at him, and giggles. He tears the top post-it note off and slaps it over Even’s nose.</p><p>Even’s eyes screw shut instinctively. He opens them back up, slowly, incredulously. He peels the sticky note from his nose with a deliberate air of ridiculousness. Turns it over and reads it.</p><p><i>You’re kind of actually perfect</i>, it says in Isak’s scrawl. <i>Eskild was right. And I love you.</i></p><p>Even turns to Isak, wide-eyed. “Eskild? <i>Eskild</i>? What have you been saying about me to Eski--”</p><p>But Isak cuts him off by surging forward and locking their lips together, so that whatever half-assed jest Even was about to toss out dies on the tip of his very tongue. Everything short-circuits as Isak deepens the kiss, just like the first time they ever did this, and Even finds his arms coming up to circle around Isak’s shoulders to pull him forward and press him flush to his chest, close. Close. Impossibly close.</p><p>There will be a time for Isak to turn and address the silence that lives inside him. He knows this, just as much as he knows that time is running out for him to face Lea and confront the monsters of quiet she planted within them both. But somehow, today, he sees that telling Eskild and then telling Even was the first leap over the chasm to telling himself. And that’s enough, he thinks, that’s all he needs to get the ball rolling and the conversations going.</p><p>So when Isak kisses Even again and again, and they intertwine themselves around each other with comfort and abandon, he feels the ache of all the things that suppress his words--love, anxiety, distance, the unknown, love, love, <i>love</i>--and he lets it be, because that’s always been par for the course in his story with Even. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I imagine the second part in this series is gonna be Isak having that talk with Lea and going through some rocky repairs to their relationship, while Even goes abroad and they both learn how to navigate a long-distance relationship with Even's bipolar disorder and Isak's mutism, which sometimes affects how and when he stays in communication with people. I just find that communication (or lack thereof) is a very manifest motif throughout SKAM, and I love exploiting that for all my skam fics :) </p><p>If you have any prompts or suggestions you would like to see in the second part and/or the rest of the series, that would be <i>amazing</i>! Meanwhile, please do drop a comment and let me know what you thought of this piece! I personally enjoyed writing it very much &lt;3 Thank you for reading!! :D -kaleb</p><p>muh tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell<br/>muh insta: kc.barrie</p></blockquote></div></div>
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